


The Scent of Fresh Oranges

by AppleSoda



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Fire Emblem Series
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Comfort Food, F/M, Fluff, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, Unpopular Pairing July
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-07 12:24:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15219092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AppleSoda/pseuds/AppleSoda
Summary: On an evening of night watch duty for the Deliverance, Faye finds that she has more in common than she thought with a soldier that may be chasing equally impossible things.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know how this ship happened and at this point I'm too afraid to ask.

It was happenstance that Faye had been the odd one out of the three guards assigned to watch the camp that night. Though the fire at the center of the circle of logs crackled merrily, her expression was impassive and glum as she watched the two men. One slowly but precisely carved notches into wood for arrowheads with the point of a hunting knife, stopping every now and again to scratch at his messy blue hair. The other was a knight clad in green that she had seen take careful notes during Alm and Sir Clive’s strategy meetings, eagerly awaiting their deployments in the service of the Deliverance.

 

The kingdom of Zofia unfolded itself gradually in the weeks that Faye had left Ram village, town by town and mission by mission. It ate at the confidence Faye, who knew how to make a little last a long way, to see what had been happening in other parts of the kingdom.She was tired of many things, but most of all, of the nauseating feeling of being wedged into conversations she didn’t properly belong. The days had passed in a flurry as priestesses, soldiers, and even a rescued noblewoman joined their ranks.

 

It was almost a relief as the merchant handed her the small crate of oranges with a note from her mother pinned at the top. Finally, Faye had thought, slipping a few coins into his hand. Something familiar. She even missed the scent of the dry hay they were packed in.

 

“There’s more to it than that, Python.” insisted the green-haired man. “Knighthood is more than a title. It is a promise that a soldier makes to the people of his kingdom.” Even from the other end of the campfire, she knew that he attracted attention with his ambitions. The sharp bite of a freshly peeled orange filled the night are and with a delight, she dug under one side of the fruit, knowing it would make her hands smell sweet hours later into the watch.

 

“That’s nice, but it doesn’t feed me any better than what I do now, Fortsyth.” Python shrugged, laying a neat arrow-shaft next to a few completed ones. “There’s a chance you die, and there’s a chance that Sir Clive doesn’t tell you apart from the next conscripted bag of bones, flesh and armor. What difference does pinning a shiny badge to your chest do?”

 

The words had angered the more loyal soldier, and as he stood up, Faye noticed that he towered over the archer, whose look had gone wary.

 

“But what’s wrong with having dreams?” Faye found herself saying, rising as well. It was almost an off-hand vocalization of what she had been thinking again and again, in moments when there wasn’t much hope to go around. She was tired, and he was obnoxious. “Really, if that’s what keeps his spirits up, what’s the harm in wanting to work your way towards being a knight? That’s what Sir Mycen was able to do, after all.” The elderly veteran was well known within their village for his prowess with the blade, which he had passed down to the children as a means to fend off wolves and bandits. It was thanks to him that Gray and Tobin wanted to be knights, too. A small part of her shared in the dream, but dared not speak of it while working amongst her family’s orange groves, pining for the leader of their little band of playmates. Neither his dream nor hers was out of reach. That she believed to be true.

 

Both men looked up at her. Python, the archer, raised an eyebrow, as if daring her to continue her line of logic, to finish what she had started. Forsyth looked over in wide-eyed wonderment with curiosity that she had only seen in the gaze of a traveling bookseller that had gone through Ram Village years ago.

 

“You sharing any of those, sweetheart?”It had been an opportune time to change ths subject. Unfortunately for him, Faye considered herself officially no longer a pushover when it came to men without manners.

 

“Only with Alm, and with people that don’t refer to me as ‘sweetheart.’” She walked over to the fire and held out two orange slices. “Forsyth, would you care for a few orange slices? My family sent me a box of them.” Seeing a bright grin and a grateful nod that proved to be stubbornly infectious, Faye dropped the fruit into his hand and sat back down, a little closer to her fellow sentinels for the night.

 

“From where in Zofia do you hail, Miss…?”

 

“Faye. Ram Village, along with Alm.” Her cheeks brightened and she stood up straighter whenever she thought of him. Faye couldn’t help but feel more alert when she thought of him. It had always been that way.

 

“A fine village, if Sir Lukas’ word is to be believed. The villagers there have picked up a life of traveling with the Deliverance without complaint, and have conducted themselves admirably.” The soldier beamed. “Your service to our cause is most appreciated.” He spoke with the cadence of a schoolteacher eager to instill a better vocabulary in his pupils.

 

“Well, it’s not that complicated. We were trained a little by Sir Mycen, and have always protected our home. Maybe not as well as a knight could. And Alm needed help, so I—er—we, decided that naturally, we should go with him.” Realizing that she was babbling a little, Faye cast a suspicious look over at Python, who had finished his pile of arrows and was busily stoking the fire to burn a little longer. Soon enough, the archer had slumped onto the broad log, snoring lightly with his arms tucked under him as a pillow.

 

“He is incorrigable, unfortunately. It is quite a task, to try to keep my friend focused on our missions. But Python has his good points, as well.” He scratched at the side of his head ruefully.

 

She blinked. “Incor…inc…”

 

“Ah, right. It means that he’s not on his best behavior. Apologies. My father was a scholar, and tutored me in letters before I decided to join the army.” Though his friend who had bothered him had already fallen into slumber. Forsyth’s face was still flushed a ltitle— from excitement, from some romantic knight’s vision, she couldn’t say.

 

Settling down, he popped the orange slices into his mouth and chewed slowly. The slight, firelit smile that crept onto his face tugged at something in Faye that she couldn’t quite place.

 

He had a broad, open face that hid little. A person that was so easily pleased by a quiet night by a fire and some fruit probably dreamt big. Not that she was very good at hiding what she wanted, either. For a moment, Faye wondered what his laugh sounded like— likely something that filled the room and made others want to laugh along with him.

 

“What made you want to become a knight, if you weren’t born into a family of them?” Sir Mycen was a patriarch in all but blood to the village children, after all. And once Zofia castle had been taken back, Faye intended to retread the same road back to her village to make sure the harvest came in—preferrably on Alm’s arm, of course.

 

The question was one that gave the soldier thought, and one that he likely took pride in answering.

 

“Python and Lukas and I fought through battles that I was sure we’d lose, if not for Sir Clive’s strategies. And even when the enemy had captured his sister in one prison and his true love in another, he’d keep going.” His voice shook, likely weighed down from memories that he didn’t really want to bring up. “I want to do anything that I can to make the people of Zofia never have to make those choices. No one should.” There was a bitterness in Forsyth’s words that she hadn’t expected. Maybe the cheeriness in him was keeping something at bay.

 

“Ah. I didn’t mean to pry.”

 

“There are no absolute secrets in what war can do to people, Miss Faye. ”

 

The weight of everything that had happened and that had yet to occur pressed down on Faye a little more. She had no easy answers. Maybe people like Alm did, but a cynical side of her knew that he wouldn’t say exactly what was on his mind. Not to people like her, anyways.

 

“Would you like to split another orange?” She was all politeness, but merely wanted to fill the night with something that wasn’t ruminating on what could or couldn’t happen. The scent of oranges was a little bitter, and, depending on if the fruit was ripe or not, either sweet or sour to the taste. But her family, as doting as they were, wouldn’t send her anything if they knew she wouldn’t write back telling them that there were no groves out there quite like theirs.

 

“I would be honored to.” He was a funny young man, despite his forthrightness about everything.And in a world of people that were incor…incorrigible as Gray, Kliff, and Tobin, Faye found that she could get along with funny young men like Forsyth just fine.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five years after the start of the war, Faye accepts Mycen's post to guard Ram Village. One chilly winter afternoon, a knight from Zofia castle rides into the gates, stirring old memories and new feelings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Faye seems like a pretty guarded character, so it's a little fun to have her get caught off guard. 
> 
> Also, timeskips are tricky for FE, especially when you're looking at postgame endings and how the writers basically map out whatever happens during the game. Imagine getting the rest of your life determined by your antics as a teen. Yikes. Just Yikes.

Faye climbed upthe ladder and shivered, glad that she had one last basket to fill before work was done for the day. Life in Ram village was a lonely but comfortable one, save for the same rumormongering that the housewives would swap in the square.

 

The rumors had started when she returned from the war three years ago, and had never ceased doing so whenever they thought she wasn’t listening. The years spent of fighting for Valentia had earned honor and respect for people like Gray and Tobin, who decided to take their titles to the Capitol. For her, there were only the questions of why she didn’t come back on Alm’s arm, and what she was going to do now. The questions weren’t so much unkind as much as unsympathetic to girls that weren’t born princesses or nobles.

 

“I’ll figure something out. You’ll see.” She was irked that twenty-three was apparently as good as a half-dead war widow to most people in the village. But that was a slight that she could ultimately live through.

 

Despite her sunny disposition, Faye realized that fate hadn’t been very kind to her in the end where Alm was concerned. But there were more important things then, and more important things now. As much as the villagers didn’t understand why she chased no glamourous life as a courtier of Valentia, Faye had seen enough of castles, princes, and knights for a lifetime. The sharp snap of orange leaves between her fingers made sense. The bright sheen of the sky when she leapt onto her pegasus and left the village behind on short rides throughout the countryside did, too. It buoyed her knowing that though Sir Mycen and his grandson-turned king no longer lived in the village, there was someone that could protect it should it fall into danger.

 

It was a romantic notion, but like many things, a dream that worked better in her head than in reality. She steadied the shears in her hand and continued to clip oranges from the boughs of the trees, one by one.

 

“Lady Faye, Lady Faye! There’s a man at the gates that wants to speak to someone. He’s a knight, just like you!”

 

The sharp, shrill voice of the child stirred her from her thoughts so suddenly that he hand slipped, slicing her thumb slightly. Wincing, she sucked away a bit of blood and dropped her basket, sending oranges scattering throughout the orchard.

 

Faye landed on her feet as she hopped down from the ladder, her brow furrowed. There had been no messages from Tobin or Gray about visiting home, and what’s more, the two of them should have been recognizeable to any child of Ram village. She looked towards the little girl. “Did he say what his name was?”

 

“No, but he was tall and loud and had shiny green armor! He’s walking around the village now” 

 

She silently ticked off possibilities until one name remained that she knew of.

 

“Okay,I’ll find him. Now you, young lady, are going to help me pick those up.” Faye pointed to the oranges with a look that mustered up all the authority that she should have had over the village adults as well. But glory earned through battle had been a thing of the past as the years had passed. What mattered was what she was going to do to push herself forward.

 

= = =

 

“Forsyth,” She had walked out from among the trees, magnificently crowned in sunlight and guided by the chill early winter winds.The few years that had passed had sharpened Faye’s optimistic, dreamy features into something a little sadder and quieter. He had passed by occasions even during the dreary years of the war where she would try to cheer up her friends or Commander Alm with a joke or a story. Faye was a young woman always at work with her heart set on what was important to her.

 

“A familiar face, at last.” He beamed. The weather in Ram Village was a little milder than the capitol. He peered around, finding a great number of trees and grassy patches that looked ideal to peruse books or letters under.“I had always wanted to see this village you spoke so fondly of. Ram village.” The name evoked a coziness that he hadn’t seen often. The life of a knight in a kingdom of peace hadn’t been one that worked the imagination.

 

“Well, here it is.” With a small shrug, Faye gestured towards what appeared to be an endless sea of trees. Right behind her, a pasture of stout, fat sheep grazed or slowly waddled about in the fields. “It’s not fit for ladies and princesses, but it’s mine to protect.”

 

“It’s as lovely as you said it was.” The air itself seemed to seep the tensions of paperwork, training drills and patrols. Reaching into his rucksack, Forsyth brandished a small bundle of envelopes. “Messages for Gray and Tobin’s families. There’s two letters in here for you.”

 

Faye’s lips flattened into a tight line as she took the two envelopes gingerly and tucked them into the pocket of her wide aproned skirt. “My thanks,” she said.

 

“Is something troubling you? A knight is honor-bound to help his fellow soldiers in their time of need.”

 

Faye thought for a few moments. “I have an errand to run before the day is over,” She said, dodging the question neatly as she pried open the note from Gray, reading it quickly.“If you have a moment, you can come along. There’s a shrine near here that we have to get to before it gets too close to dusk.” Turning back, she picked up something shining near the trees that he hadn’t noticed earlier. It was a spear, bright and shining— forged in a smithy and polished to a mirror-like sheen. 

 

“Oh, and take a weapon along. You never know what might happen.”

 

= = =

 

The Thieves’ Shrine had terrified Faye a number of years ago, inhabited by bandits that no one in the village really wanted to confront, apart from Sir Mycen. Alm had driven them out, but time and again there would be brigands taking from the food supplies that they had stored in the cool, dry cellarlike cave.Gray’s family had been brewing and fermenting for centuries, and was known to have a cache of aged wines that they guarded jealously. In his letter, he requested a bottle for the castle for an upcoming festival.

 

Faye was used to making trips out to the shrine to fetch things the villager stored there. Every now and again, she needed to get something from one of the nooks and crannies in the cavern that the villagers had squirreled away or hidden. A bandit was unlikely to take wine that had just been tucked into the cave, but aged Ram Wine was more carefully hidden.

 

Something clattered and shook among a pile of crates within the cave. She saw Forsythe tense and raise the iron-tipped spear at his side.

 

Faye held up a hand.

 

“If you just take the cheap orange ales and leave the expensive stuff, you may go in peace!” Faye hung her lantern near a half-rotted tree that grew within the dimming shrine’s main chamber, cautiously walking towards the source of the sound, remaining as quiet as she could.

 

“Why do you not simply drive them all away?”Forsyth asked, half-apprehensive and half-curious.

 

“We’ve had a good harvest this year, and I don’t fight them if I don’t have to.” Faye explained. It irritated her when bandits or petty thieves raided the shrine, but there was a time and place to invite trouble into the village. Forsythe likely didn’t get it. He wasn’t from there, after all.

 

Alarm flashed through her as Faye realized that the scavenger wasn’t a bandit. Its stench had made it readily apparent that what she faced down wasn’t a human at all. Its low groan was one taht she had encountered on the battlefield a number of times. Revulsion bubbled within her throat as she faced down the monsters that had risen from the earth to claw mindlessly at anything that stood in their way.

 

“No harm will come to you, Miss Faye!” Already, he charged towards the Entombed, defiantand angry and aiming a lance strike at its head. Faye felt the keen senses of a Falcon Knight’s training take over her as she aimed her spear at another monster that had emerged from a smaller antechamber of the cave.“Leave it to me,” Without hesistation, Faye leveled her lance and struck at the reinforcements.

 

Her lance crackled with holy energy as it sliced across the torso of the monstrocity, sending it reeling. Its claws sent her off-balance, her grip on the weapon unsteady from where she had cut her hand. Charging forward from besides her was the knight, aiming a sword strike at the neck of the Entombed. Bottles of ale and provisions went flying as it was slammed into the side of the cave.

 

 

“Is that a common duty of a village-bound knight?” asked Forsythe, breaking the silence with a too-earnest question. His face was flushed with excitement, satisfied that the monsters had been driven back.

 

“A village knight,” answered Faye brightly, thinking back to something that Sir Mycen had said many years ago, “is prepared for just about anything.”

 

= = =

 

Forsyth had insisted on finding the wine after the last of the Entombed had fallen away, fussily worrying over the labels within the different crates. When Faye tried to search with him, he waved her off and continued in stride. Faye was dissatisfied that she hadn’t known right away just what was going through the cave. How many times had she patrolled or worked through those little countryside missions alone?

 

“You’re hurt.” He said, after throwing the bottle of wine for Gray in a sling-bag at his side. “Were you wounded, Faye?”

 

“Oh, this? No, it was from picking oranges. Don’t worry about it. I’ll figure it out.” Those dismissive words and ashieldlike smile were her go-to strategies for anyone too nosy or who pushed too close to how she really felt.

 

“No, I’ve got a medical kit. Wounds can’t wait,” insisted Forsyth. They had made it back to the entrance of the shrine, where he hurriedly searched through the small tin of medicine before brandishing a small bandage roll. Leaning over, he began to wrap the cut, focused intently on his actions.

 

Her face heated slightly as she felt the brush of his thumbs over hers, noticing that his touch lingered a little longer than the time it took to properly wrap a bandage. It was just like Forsyth to never go halfway on anything he set his mind to, but Faye still couldn’t place why he was so worried. Or why he had gone all the way out to the sticks to find a bottle of wine and deliver a few letters.

 

They returned to the village just as the last traces of sunlight had vanished from the picturesque countryside of Valentia. A bard, likely traveling throughout Zofia’s villages, had set up a small camp and was playing a mournful, quiet tune on a small violin. Besides him was an accompanist on a lute, strumming and singing a soft song about three beautiful pegasus knight sisters.

 

Torches and Bonfires burned across the quiet rows of houses, casting shadows over the groves of fruit-bearing orange trees.

 

Faye flexed her bandaged fingers, trying to ignore the lightness in her chest wouldn’t let up. She had cut herself dozens of times when working on small chores and errands on the farm many times, and often simply wrapped them herself when they started to bother her. It had been years since someone that wasn’t a cleric or a healer had thought to care for her that way. Even in the army, she had heard many conversations she wasn’t supposed to hear about how difficult she was, how embarassing it was that she had pined for Alm for so long.

 

Nothing, it seemed, would allow her dreams of the past to leave for good.

 

“It’s beautiful here,” Forsyth’s voice was faintly satisfied. Besides her, she saw the soft exhalation of wonderment puff out into the chilly knight. “The trees, the quiet, the town—Sir Mycen was right to leave it all to you to protect. You’ve done admirably.”

 

“I never went a day without thinking about it.” Faye closed her eyes and inhaled the calm winds of home herself. “Now, shall we get something to eat?” Her instincts as a knight and her comfort with explaining things about her home took over. Those would get her through his visit, and he would simply return to the Castle, with nothing changed. 

 

The inn was packed with villagers who had finished their days bustling about their business. Outside, benches and tables near the bards were empty, with enough proximity to a roaring, crackling fire to keep Faye and Forsyth plenty warm. Her nerves almost audibly buzzed as they settled in with two bowls heaped with stew and a small bag of oranges to share between them. Years ago, there was a conversation she remembered that had started with a few oranges.

 

Some time later, once the stew had been polished off, Faye peeled one of those oranges and began to talk again.

 

“So, would you say that you’ve fulfilled your dream?” There was nothing to guard, nothing to watch, and no Python heckling either of them. That scared Faye a little, because in the absence of all those things were the possibility that she would say something wrong. That she would scare him away, too.

 

“I live it each and every day, and I’m going to do so as long as I have a place in the Brotherhood of Knights.” Like a large, awkward cat clad in green traveling clothes, he stretched out his limbs and yawned. “How would you say that you’ve done?”

 

“Well, you know what they’ve said.” Faye wanted to look away. She had hoped he wouldn’t pry into that matter, but like everything, Forsyth simply decided to charge through.

 

“King Alm was lucky to have your affections, even if he did not return them,” he said gently.

 

Faye wrinkled her nose. “It was shameful, and then everyone here found out about it. It’s become….something of a weight I can’t shake off. And as a result, everyone in the village looks past me when I’m not needed for my lance or for the orange harvests.”

 

Her shoulders tensed as she set aside the orange slices, turning to face him. “You don’t just look past me. Why is that?” She continued. The weight of being overlooked had settled down and built a home in her. But he had entered into that world in the course of an afternoon with letters and a curiosity about the village that had made her wonder if it was a trick of the light or some mage’s spell gone wrong.

 

There was silent laughter in his eyes as he chuckled, the cheeriness reverberating through the knight’s large frame. “Because I simply cannot look anywhere else when I see you.”

 

The weight of the words hung limply like a woolen scarf someone had draped over Faye’s shoulders. They were soft and tempting, but took some time getting used to in the biting cold.

 

“You cannot possibly mean that—”

 

“I do not lie, milady. I had wanted to see this village, with you in it. And to see you make it prosper is a victory that is as triumphant as any knight’s campaign.” 

 

“You exaggerate,” Faye half-laughed.

 

“Please.” His tone was almost pleading now. “Listen to me as you once did— whenI was but a common Deliverance soldier and you a girl aspiring to knighthood and glory in a war neither of us understood.” She froze. The night, many years ago, had been on his mind as well.

 

“I make no claims to your heart. What you do with it is yours. But I’d like it very much if I could try to see you again.”

 

He pressed his lips to her hand with a tenderness that almost broke her heart. Faye’s pulse pounded in her chest, and she could feel the fires they sat near lapping at her veins, despite their relative distance. The bards had struck up a quiet, contemplative tune with no words. She looked up at Forsyth, whose gaze was focused, as if nothing mattered but what she would say.

 

“Well, I hope you’ve got a taste for oranges.” As the winds blew around them, the soft sound of the laughter of two knights still alive, still well, and still dreaming pushed against the leaves of Ram Village’s trees, keeping the cold at bay for a moment or two.


End file.
